Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Janet Givens/@GivensJanet
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.” Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
I am very happy to feature Memoir Author Janet Givens in this guest post. Janet’s upcoming memoir At Home on the Kazakh Steppe is a story of the challenges and transformation that occurred in their lives when she and her husband lived in Kazakhstan, the largest of the former Soviet Republics, as Peace Corps volunteers in their 50’s and 60’s in 2004.
Welcome, Janet!
KP: Where is Kazakhstan?
JG: Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I thought the Soviet Union WAS Russia. It wasn’t until I got into poli sci in grad school and the Soviet Union collapsed that I learned the difference. Russia was just one of the 14 “Republics” within the Soviet system that became independent in 1991 or earlier. (there are other republics still under Russian control). THEN, since the press kept referring to five of the 14 newly independent countries by lumping them together as “The Stans”, I still didn’t know about Kazakhstan. The Peace Corps changed that.
As for where it is, I can tell you that Kazakhstan is west of China (the fourth largest country) and south of Russia (thelargest). FYI, the USA is the third largest and Kazakhstan is the ninth. This is by area, not population. All pretty big, given there are about 200 identified countries now. A little fewer. I just found http://www.mapsofworld.com/
KP: “How did you wind up being “on the Kazakh steppe,” and in the Peace Corps? It’s something that college-age students do, is it not? You’re a grandmother?
JG: I am a grandmother. My husband Woody Starkweather and I joined the Peace Corps as an older, married couple in 2004. We were a bit of a rarity, since only 7% of Peace Corps volunteers are married and 5% are over 50. As for going to Kazakhstan, the Peace Corps allows each volunteer to choose their region, but my husband’s desire to teach Engisih limited our choices to Asia and Central Asia. Then using some algorithm, the Peace Corps makes a final determination on the specific country.Th
As for why we wanted to join, let me quote from the book.
“The idea of Peace Corps still had a powerful pull on me. … An even stronger pull was the unexpected patriotism we both felt after the fall of the Twin Towers and the other tragedies of that September day. We both abhorred the patriotism that was measured by flag waving and a “my country right or wrong” mindset. … We found it devoid of compassion. Woody’s Peace Corps suggestion came at the perfect time.”
Except that I loved my life as it was and I didn’t want to give any of it up.
KP: You’ve been working on this memoir since your return in 2006. Why did you set out to write this book?
JG: Oh, that’s easy; I couldn’t NOT write this book.
Of the Peace Corps’ three goals, the third is for returning volunteers to “promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” But, more than that, I wanted to understand what had happened to me. These are life-changing experiences, for the grandmothers no less than the twenty-somethings.
KP: How did you begin?
JG: I began by putting together the seventeen email updates–as I called them in the days before I knew about blogs–that I had sent home. And, I reread my journals from those two years. I found what Lisa Dale Norton calls “Shimmering Images” to be a useful metaphor for me.
When I began to query agents, I learned that Peace Corps memoirs had earned a bad rap; there just aren’t that many good ones. I knew I’d have to work harder. But I wasn’t sure how. I hired editors, I took a few Writers’ Digest workshops, and I bought books on writing memoir. Lots of books. All helped, but Eric Maisel’s The Art of the Book Proposal got me on track.
Maisel taught me to seek the “universal truth” of my story, something a reader who has never been through Peace Corps could relate to. I needed to sort through what he calls the “many possible meanings” my memoir might offer, select one, and advocate for it.
Then I rewrote my memoir with my reader in mind. To paraphrase someone else, “I wrote the first draft for me, the next ones for my reader.”
KP: So, what is the meaning of your story? It’s ‘Universal Truth?’
JG: I wanted it to be the importance of accepting cultural differences.
While I was living in Kazakhstan, the Danish cartoon controversy hit the news. Misunderstanding grew into violence that eventually reverberated around the world, reminding me just how vital it has become to be able to understand, appreciate, and honor cultural differences. And, I believe, as our world gets smaller, this becomes even more important.
The problem was that actually living in such a very different culture was hard. Whatever book learning I may have had, I found that maintaining curiosity about cultural differences was overwhelming and exhausting at times.
Take the simple act of pointing. During my first semester as an English teacher, I essentially gave my students “the finger” each time I pointed to words on the board as I would in America. I know how I’d feel if a new teacher “flipped me the bird” on a regular basis. I was mortified when I learned.
When I tried to use a pointer, as instructed, I felt pompous, like I was putting on airs. Through my discomfort, I came to appreciate how deeply rooted my American sense of informality, casualness runs. It’s the gift of cultural clashes like this one, to help us understand our own culture better.
By the way, my students and my colleagues were universally welcoming and accepting of me, no matter how many cultural faux pas I made. And there were many.
KP: So, cultural difference is the theme of your book?
JG: Well, yes and no.If “cultural differences” was all the book offered, it would read like an academic tome. Or worse, a moralistic lecture. I’d get mostly yawns, at best.
I wanted to hold my readers through to the end. To do that I had to give them a real story, with enough tension to keep them turning the page.
I had to let myself be vulnerable. By including my own insecurities — not just with the newness of Kazakh culture in which I was immersed, but with the unexpected struggles and doubts I faced about my young marriage –I found a path readers could relate to. Who hasn’t, no matter how stably married, wondered how well you really knew the person you’d married? Even better, I’ve not found a sub-theme of marital tension in any of the Peace Corps memoirs I’ve read.
KP: What has been the greatest challenge for you?
JG: I’m currently at the “weasel word” stage in my edits–finding all the “just” and “all” and “really” that sneak in without me realizing. The challenge is that I love this phase; I love how changing or deleting one word can make a huge difference in the tone of the sentence,or the emphasis or even the meaning. I can see me tinkering with my manuscript for months to come.I need to find a balance between my simmering perfectionism and my desire to get my story out.
Before this, I struggled for years with how to include my husband. In all external ways, this was a shared experience. But when we got back home, I kept hearing him say, “Janet had a really positive experience. But mine wasn’t so much so.” As a result, I consciously kept him out of my first few drafts. I feared his more negative experience would dilute my ultimately positive one. And of course, I didn’t want to admit how angry and disappointed I was that his experience didn’t mimic mine.
KP: What changed your mind?
JG: Editors changed my mind. The professionals I I’ve hired at various times over the last seven years all came back with the same message. “He’s conspicuous in his absence.” I struggled with how to include him without sounding like I was just complaining.”
KP: Has writing this book changed your life in any way?
JG: Once I learned the need for a good old-fashioned narrative arc, even in memoir, I began reading fiction again. I needed to see how great novelists developed their characters, what was it that made me like the protagonist, what made me care, and most important, what kept me reading? I tried to weave the answers I found from reading fiction into my story of living in Kazakhstan. I’m still learning (of course) and always will. I love the process, particularly the rewriting. I’ve found how much I love words, how much power they have, even the little,tiny ,short ones.
I also learned I needed to show as much compassion for the characters in my story, including myself, as I did the honesty I was so wedded to in the beginning. I’ve recently discovered the writer Dinty Moore, who writes, “Compassion requires that we understand, even if we disagree.”
That is, it turns out, may well be the real theme of my book.
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Author’s Bio:
Janet Givens, M.A., is a practicing psychotherapist and sociologist who gave up her career to join Peace Corps at age 55. She writes of life, cultural differences, Kazakhstan, friendship and peace in the Vermont Countryside with her white shepherd at her feet and a stash of dark chocolate within her reach.
In addition to At Home on the Kazakh Steppe, Janet co-authored the textbook Stuttering, which was included in Choice Magazine’s “Best Textbooks of 1997″ list, the first in its field to win this award. She has a middle school work, Grandma Goes to Kazakhstan and a picture book/adult fable, Two Bunnies, in need of an illustrator.
Contact Information:
Website: Janet Givens, write
Facebook:
PROFILE at Janet Givens
PAGE: Janet Givens, Author
Twitter: @GivensJanet
Google+ at Janet Givens
Goodreads at Janet Givens
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Thank you Janet for sharing your memoir writer’s journey with us. In showing us how writing your Peace Corps memoir is a process of self-discovery, you provide us with many valuable memoir writing tips. Best wishes on the launch of At Home On the Kazakh Steppe. Be sure to keep us posted on the release date.
How about you? What has your experience been with cultural difference? Do you have any tips to add to Janet’s about writing a memoir? Any Peace Corps memoirs you’d recommend?
Next Week: “Writing with the Reader in Mind”